Jackie Lynton I Nearly Made It, Then I Fell Over… review

What a barrelful of chuckles and memories

The fun-loving reputation of Jackie Lynton the former Savoy Brown frontman who in 1982 seduced the Reading Festival with a singalong slice of smut called The Hedgehog Song, leaps out from these enjoyable 93 pages. Lynton’s writing style is a splatter-gun of random quick-fire gags and reminiscences (“I left my wife a note: ‘Just popping over to Ritchie Blackmore’s house’. That was on the Friday. I finally arrived home on the Monday”), and this autobiography is filled with tales of Lemmy, Stevie Wonder, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Phil Collins and, above all, Status Quo, who Lynton famously introduces on their 1977 live album (he also co-wrote Again And Again with Rick Parfitt, and fronted John Coghlan’s Diesel Band).

Run-ins with the taxman, tales of groupies, divorces, working on building sites, painting houses between gigs… it’s all here.